Labour Party
The Labour Party lead by Ed Miliband is one of the two biggest parties in the United Kingdom and was the ruling party from 1997 to 2010. Though the party was founded on Socialist values in 1900, and remained staunchly left-wing for the majority of the 20th Century, they abandoned some of their leftist ideals for a more populist, centrist right-wing approach in the 90s and labelled themselves "New Labour" or "Nu Labor" in many parts of England and Scotland. This won them the election. For lack of a better option, many leftists and Socialists in the UK still vote Labour, if only to keep the Combined Forces of Evil out of power. The last two Prime Ministers, Gordon Brown and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair were both New Labour. History Origins Labour was founded by a Socialist and a Scotsman (those two words being almost synonymous), Keir Hardie, along with others, as an amalgamation of several 19th Century left-wing parties, such as the Social Democratic Federation and the Scottish Labour Party. Upon the next election, the party only won two seats in parliament: Keir Hardie in Merthyr Tydfil (it's in Wales) and Richard Bell in Derby (guess). OMG! We got elected! After winning 191 MPs in the 1923 General Election, Labour finally defeated the Tories and got Britain its first ever Socialist Prime Minister: Ramsay MacDonald, who was, you guessed it, a Scotsman. But there was a catch: they had a minority in parliament. That meant poor old Ramsay and his comrades couldn't pass any darn Socialist legislation because those God damn Liberals kept shooting it down. Thus, Ramsay had to portray Labour as moderate. Didn't mean he had to like it. However, the Conservative Party swooped in in a three-cornered hat and accused Ramsay and Labour of Communist trickery, showing parliament a letter implicating the entire membership of the Labour Party in a Communist plot to take over Britain. The British population had an attack of the stupids and believed them, and voted the Tories back into power. ...again! In the 1929 General Election Labour won 287 seats, becoming the largest party in parliament. However, the Liberals were up to no good again, forcing Labour to form a coalition government with them. The Conservatives sat in the corner, sulking and plotting another Communist conspiracy. Ramsay appointed the first ever woman (no, not Eve) to his cabinet. The 1929 election was the first election in Britain with a universal suffrage (discluding moronic children that don't understand politics). Unfortunately, Ramsay forgot that God still hated him, and Wall Street crashed a few months later, starting off the Great Depression. By the end of 1930 unemployment had doubled to over two and a half million, and Ramsay had no idea what to do, since Socialism requires employment. Grudgingly, Ramsay, Labour and the Liberals formed a "National Government" with the Conservatives, who were laughing due to the Depression being their idea. This made Labour very, very angry. So they kicked out Ramsay, and subsequently lost the next election. Keep your friends close... keep your enemies in Germany Labour spent the next decade being the whiny opposition, which they found a lot easier than actually having to run the country. Feeling fairly comfortable in their new position, Labour was quietly enjoying not being the ones to fuck up the country for once, until, suddenly, Hitler invaded Poland. Labour formed a coalition in 1940 government with Churchill and his cronies. After Churchill single-handedly won WW II by marching into Berlin and talking Hitler into committing suicide, Labour was without a common enemy and promptly switched back to hating the Tories. Subsequently, Labour won the next election, with Clement Attlee becoming the next Prime Minister. Ham-Fisted Food Fascists The Attlee government was one of the most radical and controversial governments in the history of Britain. Attlee, being a hyper-Stalinist and radical Muslim, immediately nationalised the Bank of England, coal mining, the steel industry, electricity, gas, telephones, transport and shipbuilding. Then, to add insult to injury, he went and Socialized medicine. He then proceeded to slap Lady Britannia in the face by gradually dismantling the overseas colonies of the British Empire, giving independence to India, Pakistan, Burma Sri Lanka, and Scotland Scotland got partial independence much later. all in the same bloody year. They won the 1950 election by a whisker, but lost the 1951 election and Labour then spent 13 years in opposition. The National Health Service has been an enduring success, less radically it is to this administration that we owe the legacy of Britain being a Nuclear power. The model of big centralised state capitalism pioneered by the Attlee government turned out to be an inefficient way to run competitive businesses, and Britain today has only a fraction of the coal, steel and shipbuilding indiustries that it then had. Swinging 60s Labour returned to power from 1964 to 1970 under Harold Wilson, the economic mistakes and over centralism of the Attlee government were repeated, and much of the coal mining industry was closed down. But Wilson kept Britain out of the Vietnam War, and his Home Secretary Roy Jenkins was to be the greatest radical Home Secretary of the twentieth century. Divorce became possible for ordinary people, Abortion and Homosexuality were both legalised and the Death penalty was abolished. Footnotes Category:Politics of the United Kingdom